"One can say this in general of..." - Quote by Niccolo Machiavelli
One can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit...Love is a bond of obligation that these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes.
More by Niccolo Machiavelli
“The end of the republic is to enervate and to weaken all other bodies so as to increase its own body.”
“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”
“Anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it; for such a city may always justify rebellion in the name of liberty and its ancient institutions.”
More on Human Nature
“That's maybe the reason he does so many things so that he will not have to think .”
“We are accustomed to see men deride what they do not understand, and snarl at the good and beautiful because it lies beyond their sympathies”
“Forbid a man to think for himself or to act for himself and you may add the joy of piracy and the zest of smuggling to his life.”
More on Fear
“What torments of grief you endured, from evils that never arrived”
“He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we cannot find expression.”
“It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children”